Showing posts with label calpso. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calpso. Show all posts

Saturday, 1 July 2017

Issue 12: Loot 2.0


Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
Compet: Notice to deed holders
Long awaited: Loot 2.0
Hogglo Diablos Attack: Fort Argus!

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]





Hogglo Diablos Attack: Fort Argus!

Hogglo Diablos have been rampaging around near Fort Argus! The super-sized creatures are the result of a series of genetic experiments performed by deranged criminal Gareth.


Even though Hogglos have once again been pushed back! Attacks so far have occurred near an abandoned outpost. The outpost and surrounding area are covered with white vents that protrude from the ground, indicating the presence of some kind of underground facility.

The door to each vent bears the Omegaton logo. When questioned about their connection to the outpost, Omegaton replied that they simply built the doors and did not assemble the outpost itself. Furthermore they said they had never owned the outpost. All entries regarding the building and ownership of the outpost are currently missing from official records.


Compet: Notice to deed holders

Compet is available is on a number of systems, excluding any mention of windows mobile OS. Compet is now currently still awaiting on the release on iOS, a statement from creators say that the release of Compet on iOS is in its final phase and should be available shortly although no release date has been stated.

Many things have been implemented since the last time we had a detailed look at Compet, like recent addition of adding in PECs, just like Entropia PEDs and PECs, this will allow people to have battles at a lower prices and the new front page menu which allows you to jump strait into a battle, along with a loads of the new creatures to own.


A small comment to the Compet deed holders indicates that the revenue payment system will be implemented after a number of tasks have been completed.

Assuming that deed payments start when the final product is being marketed to the general public, It has been stated that a number of things are to still being developed before marketing can begin. The Tournament and eSports system is currently in development which should widen the audience and appeal of Compet. Another major part of the concept is the “cross-platform” trading aspect. This feature is currently in development both in Entropia Universe and Compet. Additional language support will also be added for worldwide players and general optimization and fine tuning of game play.

In addition to all of this expect to see strongboxes and buff items called Trinkets. Not much was mentioned about this, but assuming them to be like Entropia Universe's strongboxes, we have an idea on what to expect.2

Deed revenues is already currently being accumulated and payments will begin once ComPet is fully functional. So expect the first payment to be a few months worth's of payments. To back track on the value of the compet deed in Entropia, the original price on the web store was priced at 100 PED per deed, then just as before the web store stopped offering compet deed's the price went up to 120 PED per deed. Since the web store has closed the value of the compet deed declined slowly over time, the average of over 800 sales this month on auction 93 PED per deed. Some deeds going for as low as 88 PED per deed.



Long awaited: Loot 2.0

"MindArk has been monitoring the community discussions concerning so-called 'loot waves' and will implement changes in the Loot 2.0 and subsequent Version Updates that will address this issue by improving the distribution of resources and items, with the goal of ensuring that loot opportunities are more interesting, dynamic and fair for all participants"


This month MindArk has released a long awaited loot update that overhauled the way in which hunting loot is calculated and distributed, which will significantly improve overall loot returns for the vast majority of participants in the hunting profession. Although the current looting system has been released, there are some changes still being finalized and tested, therefore expect subsequent patches or version updates.

The loot calculations will be optimized and improved to better factor in the various costs associated with hunting activities, this includes healing, ammo consumption, buffs, tool and armor deterioration, attachments, and more.

A new economy rating parameter has been introduced on the item information screens of weapon, attachments and mindforce attack chips, on a scale of from 1 to 100, that indicates the efficiency of a tool and which influences loot calculations. This change from the once dominant damage/pec model will provide the design team at MindArk with more freedom to release exciting and interesting items with a wider range of damage output and special effects.

Since the update general loot return has improve from creature to creature, no more no loots, ammunition has been removed from hunting loot has been replaced with shrapnel. Expect the price of Nova and Blaza fragments to rise, as none as seen yet has been dropped.

Armor has also had a bit of an update, Armor now decays significantly less per point of damage absorbed, and no longer has a minimum decay based on total protection, it will now always decay proportionally to the amount of damage absorbed. Armor and armor platings now decay independently based on the amount of damage they each actually absorb, rather than both decaying as if absorbing the full amount of received damage. Armor can now absorb all incoming damage down to a minimum of 0.1 point of damage taken, instead of the previous 1.0 points of damage.

A profession level requirement will be introduced for unlimited armors. Meeting the required level results in the armor offering full protection at all condition values. If the profession requirement is not met, armor works as before, with protection decreasing relative to condition.

Many of the changes seem to be well received by many, but a few are saying they miss getting more globals and would like to see more loot other than shrapnel.



First Laser Sniper Master!

A landmark moment occurred this month with “Gaina Messi91 Cristi” became the first ever avatar to reach the skill level of Entropia Master, attaining level 200 in the Laser Sniper (Hit) profession.


Saturday, 1 October 2016

Issue 9: Growth


Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
New Security: Entropia Pocket
Going Green: Land Development
The robot wars are coming

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]





New Security: Entropia Pocket

Another new free downloadable app is available from MindArk on the appstores, this app offers the two part security system that was previously only available to gold card holders. Those already using the Gold Card Security System may continue to do so, but this system may not be available for purchase in the future.

Entropia Pocket is set to be the companion of every EU adventurer, not only providing security, but also providing real-time information about system updates, in-game events, news and support information. As for being an added value to the actual game other than security is yet to be seen.

It is very obvious that MindArk is now currently moving into the mobile phone app market. Compets is coming along quite nicely and is still in the open beta phase, but the old Virtual Tycoon for Entropia needs to be developed further and has been sitting in the background for a while now.

What needs to be developed by MindArk is an update to the Virtual Tycoon app, Many features are still needed to be a successful trader app in the Entropia Universe that could stand alone purely on the market. A few good examples of this is ability to split stacks of items and access land deed revenues.

The Entropia Pocket app is already available for download on the iTunes App store and the Google Play store.



Going Green: Land Development

One of the exciting new features that will be implemented soon is an expansion to the Housing system that will enable production of resources from Calypso Land Deed Plot estates. The first type of production to be implemented will be Gardening, allowing Plot holders to grow various plants that will be used in the construction of new components for crafting.


As well as creating saleable and craftable goods, working on your garden builds up points that will unlock upgrades to your home and increase its value. This will be interesting to see how the investment into Calypso Land Deeds will pay off.




The robot wars are coming

Earlier this year MindArk implemented a new dynamic event system, which has been used to create a number of Robot Invasion events on the planet Calypso.

Although these invasions have been for higher level players, in the next few months it is expected there will be further additional Robot Invasion events suitable for lower level avatars in the upcoming release.

MindArk will continue to expand and improve this system and provide a powerful and flexible tools for the Planet Partners to create engaging dynamic and storyline driven events in the future.

This is exactly in line with Neverdie's plans to create a transport network using this dynamic system to create teleporter robot battles.




More active than last year

The Mindark marketing team has shared some intresting statistics from MindArk’s intense marketing efforts over the past year:

"The number of active participants has grown by more than 51% over the past 12 months and in-game revenue has grown 10% year-on-year for the first 2 quarters of 2016."

This is a huge amount of new players that are currently active, for every two active players from last year there will be one new active player extra this year. Not only that but the 10% higher revenue is an amazing amount of growth within a short time, showing that Entropia's economy still over the many years of its existance only continues to get stronger over time.

Thursday, 1 September 2016

Issue 8: Virtual revolution


Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
PvP: Sunday Event
Compets: Let's find a fight.
VR: Getting plugged in

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]





PvP: Sunday event

This weekend many Entropians will be flocking to Fortress Invincible to take part in a PvP event.
The tickets to this PvP event costs only 0.10 PED with first, second and third price being 20 PED and in addition the PED value of the weapon damage and ammo spent during the event will be added to prizes.
With an easy entry cost everyone is more than welcome to join the official Fortress Invincible PVP Event. The event is a Non-lootable PVP Team play event. Armor will not provide protection and but will not deteriorate. If you are thinking of taking part or looking to find more details about the event, take a look at the event list to see the full details and to register. The event will run for an hour on Sunday the 4th of September at Fortress Invincible starting at 18:00 UTC.

Aim for the head for the most damage and good luck to everyone taking part!


Compet: Let's find a fight

This month arena battles has had a major update! It is now a great deal easier to find arena battles, you can now select a number or battle packs to search in the background as you manage your village.


Before you could be searching for hours on flicking between battle packs and not finding anyone, but now this option allows you to find people a lot easier. This feature will make the game run smoother from the players perspective when it comes to actually finding a battle.

As for other competitors in the current marketplace, pokemon go is going threw a big hype and during this period it would not be a great idea to market Compets.

There have been some questions regarding when deed holders will start receiving Compet deed revenue payouts, an official statement states:
"Payment of ComPet Deed revenue share to Deed Holders will commence once ComPet leaves the Beta stage. To those who are playing ComPet Open Beta, we thank you all for your continuing feedback!"
But with no sign of an official release date being announced, the date of the first deed payment is an unknown factor.


VR: Getting plugged in

This month Mindark announced that it is optimizing the Entropia Universe platform to fully support the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2, Valve and HTC's SteamVR and other immersive Virtual Reality platforms.


Entropia Universe will provide developers with solutions for monetizing a wide variety of virtual games and applications in addition to its own award winning multi-planet MMORPG universe.

David Simmonds, Entropia Universe head of business development stated:
"With Facebook's Acquisition of Oculus and Valve producing its own immersive experience with HTC, Virtual Reality is on the threshold of becoming the great entertainment medium of the new millennium." 

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

Issue 5: Compet Beta.

Entropiazine

A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this month's publication of Entropiazine:
Compet: Deed prices and beta released.
President of Virtual Reality: Complaints about the election.
Hunting Season.

Author: [Felix Zell Shallow]




Compet: Deed prices and beta released.

This month has been a mixed month for the Compet game. The release date was held back seven days before the beta testing period of the game, although it is not the first time the date has been held back. In the last week deed prices went up on the web store from 100 to 120 PED per deed, a number of shop owners not knowing would of been a bit slow in reacting resulting in flash sales and at a loss compared to the new market price. Currently the deeds can not be brought from the web store while the close beta is running, the deeds can still be brought on the auction currently around 130 PED each.


The general reception of the game in beta is quite good overall, and if Mindark marketing goes well, Compet can become a great pet fighting game in years to come. Currently the game has inactive moment when it comes to battling other players, but this is due to the game being in beta and will have a limited user base. There has been a few small complained about equality of battle for newer creatures and the speed it takes for a player to level up their creatures.

Originally it was intended that Compet would be a close beta for the deed holders only, but anyone with the link to the beta game currently has access to it, as it is not currently not linked to Entropia anyone can sign up and play using an email account or Facebook, and a number of places have posted its download link location publicly.

In the ComPet Shop, players have the ability to increase their PED balance through real-cash deposits. Deposited PED can then be exchanged for gold and diamonds in ComPet. Gold and diamonds are ‘soft currencies’: they do not represent real-world monetary value. It is perfectly possible to play ComPet using only the soft currencies.



President of Virtual Reality: The people's thoughts.

This month has been a hard month for Jon Jacob Neverdie, many have slammed him and the election process in Entropia, leading many to think this was a self proclamation. Many people in the forums of Entropia have complained about the process of election, complaining that originally all voting process should of been handled in game with the old voting booths and that it was originally intended for deeds holders. Many people question the process and authenticity of the election and many people have complained about the fact that they could not put their money forward themselves to be apart of the process, along with the other two contenders having effectively zero information about their own campaign.

Jon Jacob Neverdie created an open post on Entropia forum to be slammed by the many people and their view on the teleporter charge along with other complaints about Entropia economy in general. Neverdie has........ A number of the older Entropians have even talked about boycotting Rocktropia altogether. The small amount of player who have decided to boycotting Rocktropia would have a very small to no effect on Rocktropia economy.

Other than talking to the Entropians, Neverdie has been on a press tour around about his campaign for creating jobs in virtual reality, a small amount of press has appeared about this, but not much in the way of headlining. A number of press articles exist just equally dismissing his claims for virtual jobs as a pipe dream at the cost of the average player.






Hunting Season.

This month Icarus was overrun by Marcimex deep from underground. The subterranean terrors have never been seen above ground! Sightings have even been reported from as far out as Jurra Plateau and around Twin Peaks. Many people hunted these creatures until they have now returned to their underground lair.

It is just over a month away until the migration season and many people are getting geared up to hunt the Eomons and Longtooths while they migrate. Keep a close eye on CDF pheromone reports of the migration paths.

Here is a recap of 2015 migration:



Longtooths:
67912, 83266 - Young.
67564, 83554 - Old.
66972, 83944 - Providers
66456, 83972 - Guardians


Eomon youngs
87767, 79922 - Young.
87877, 79833 - Young, mature and old.
87864, 79937 - Provider and guardian.
87854, 79846 - Old alpha.
87879, 79794 - Stalkers.



Within the next month we are expecting CDF pheromone report, and if anything is made public within the next month, you will hear about it here.

Sunday, 1 March 2015

Issue 2: Line at the big rig.

Entropiazine
A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine.

In this week publication of Entropiazine:
Interview: The insides of the dominating land grab society.
News: The successful line created at Ashi Rig (Big Rig).
Quests: Good advice on quests for new players.







The successful line created at Ashi Rig (Big Rig)!

Most new people with and agility level of ten and above will most likely know about the small oil rig just above Camp Icarus, the burned charred area known as the Orthos oil field.

Most of the skilled player verse player characters hang around at the big rig, where killing for oil is actually worth it. At the small rig at Orthos killing the line is not worth the oil, you spend more PED killing than you do gaining in oil. The people who spree and kill the line at the small rig tends to be blowing of steam or just a bit of fun for the more skilled players, from what I have learned talking to the line killers.

This line created at big rig was not the first line created at the big rig, a line like this has been created twice before, but never as publicly shown as the image above. A number of guards set out to defend the new people from the harder avatars around the big rigs, as everyone lined up for a ton of oil!

Now if anyone tells you a line at the big rig is not possible, you now know otherwise, all it takes is peoples willingness to share.


The insides of the dominating land grab society (WhySoSerious).

Earlier this month I was able to find a member of the society that owns all the land areas, it was a great pleasure to get an interview and to find out more about the workings of the land area and the society it self.

The society is a small band of 30 people as stated in last months issue, but only about 20 members make the core of the groups, of which these members are online most of the time. Some of the members of the group know each other in real life, so it seems to be quite a close group of friends.

"Linzey: We are very close, it becomes your second life this game!"

The land areas are taxed but it is not much money is made, most of the fund raised from land areas goes into player verse player gear. For one year there was no or very little contestants of the land areas...

"Linzey: For a year was not much shooting then was decent profits."

... but now the society has to defend more today, which means ammo use and equipment repairs are needed once again to keep hold of the land areas on Calypso in land grab events.

"Linzey: To me its just the fun!"

The funds from land area tax gets shared out in the society, but little is known of the details behind this.


Quests: A guide for new players.

Sometimes I forget how weak new players on Entropia, once you have been in Entropia a while, you character will get stronger very slowly, it is almost hardly noticeable. Recently I have been helping a group of my friends who has recently started themselves and its a nice surprise to see that I survive a lot longer in general, especially when most of my life on Entropia had been solo.

Here is some great advice for new people who have just started:

  1. Sweating; the most basic of skills in Entropia, everyone can sweat an animal, and being new with not a single PED on your card, you will find quickly this is one very small source of income on Entropia. The best way to sweat s to get nice and close, and take plenty of hits from the animal you are sweating, this will give you more skills in other areas which help in combat. The main skill that helps in sweating is evasion, the more you get hit, the more evasion experience you get, the less you will get hit in the future. In a good group of people sweating, people should be in a nice tight circle around a animal to stop the creature moving, because every time the animal moves, you will lose your target, and fail to get sweat. It is also good to note here, everyone wants to sell sweat, but only a few want to buy sweat. My advice for sweat selling, is to hold onto it until you find someone who actually want to buy it, and hold out for the best priced buyer. You will only kick yourself if you sell for 1.7 in haste when a 1.8 buyer can turn up 10 seconds later. Plus every sale at a lower price makes buyers think they can buy it at a lower price in future effecting who economy as a whole for sweat. After you have a few PED from sweating try catch a flight to Boreas, You will find a sweating group there most of the time. The next location, which will yield less experience then Boreas but more sweat is Neas Place, which is further to get to and costs more for a pilot.
  2. If you are returning after being away for a bit, you may notice a ton of vehicles have been added to Entropia. There is a simple mission where you can get a car for free, any new player gets this car from a beginning tutorial mission. If you have not got your free car, you can visit the Calypso Gateway at the end of the middle pier at Port Atlantis. The Calypso Gate is classed as a different planet, so anything stored here will remain here. One of the common problems I hear is that new players lose their car here, if you lose your car, it automatically returns to the storage after being a way from it to long. If you lose your car at the Calypso Gateway, you will have to return for it.
  3. Mission that give away free universal ammo are hiding about.... On the other side of the map! Once you have PED from selling sweat, try get a flight to Half Moon Bay, on the beach will be a mission there that will give you free ammo. After that follow the road out of Half Moon Bay to Cape Corinth Market, you will find a few mission along the way, all easy and rewarding. You can also convert shrapnel into universal ammo, right click and convert. Note: shrapnel can be sold and traded where universal ammo can not!
Skill takes time and sometimes PED to build up, focus on what you can do heading to what you would like to do. This simple 3 step guide should help new people get some basic equipment and skills to get them started, and it will also help people who have been away for a while and returned get some goodies for returning.


Sunday, 1 February 2015

Entropiazine 1st Issue


Entropiazine
A Monthly Entropian E-Magazine

In our first publication of Entropia Zine:
Market: Avoiding the dead skin markets.
History: How did humans come to be on Calypso?
Property: Land grab areas owned by one society.
News: Pet fighting for mobile devices and ComPet Deeds.






Publisher's Comments:

Hello, I am [Felix Zell Shallow], most people know me in game as just Felix. It has been a long time since I returned to Entropia. The Cry-engine update did as I expected, and knock quite a few of the big players out of the game, and returning to what feels like a whole new game, I was one of these players.

I come from a time in Entropia when people used to taxi other people by foot to teleporters on a single planet and sweat was 12k per PED. Im sure many of the other older player will remember and still call Entropia Universe, "Project Entropia".

A lot of things have changed in Entropia in the last few years. The most well known is the ability to drive vehicles, with a huge range to selection to choose from, from good old fashioned off road 4x4's to space ship, and everything in between

For the the people who hardly know me, I am the leader of the society Entropia Market, once a quite well known group of traders which used to hang around Atlas Haven, Twin Peak and Port Atlantis. Sadly along with the update, like most players at the time, and many other societies, became dead.

Even though Entropia has changed a lot over the last few years, the basics of trading are exactly the same, and I was able to jump straight back in where I left off, setting up new contacts and making new friends along the way.

The main reason I am writing this E-zine is to help to improve the game as a whole, the economy of this game is widely based on the value of its players and the way MindArk controls and represents its own product. With that in mind my goals are purely to enlighten younger players and enhance the economy of the game by pointing out things that attention should be drawn too.

Thank you for reading, and hope you find it enjoyable and helpful inside Entropia!


Avoiding the dead skin markets.

One of the unavoidable annoyances of any hunter is not being able to sell their loot. New player may scrap their items for quick PEDs at the trade terminal, but for an old experienced played this can lead to a very big stack of items that can not be traded!


This is highly important to understand, for something to have a value, someone must have a need for it, and Entropia's structure for hunting, mining and crafting is based on this. The main reason for the lack of people wanting to buy such stacks of items is simply down to the lack of demand for the items in the game. A good example of this is Snablesnot Skins, last month had no sales on the auction, and I know it is not down to supply, With the some people offering trade terminal price for it at auction, with not a single bid.


The problem could be one of three things, there are hardly any people who craft, which I very much doubt, or hardly any blueprint which use theses items, or the product that is produced is not in demand. No matter where the lack of demand stems from, the market for these stackable items seems to be a dead one currently in Entropia.

To the hunters, I recommend to avoid assuming that you will be able to sell these stacks of items at all, it would be a waste of your PED on the auction fee to place these items on the auction if no one is buying at all. Be prepared to sell these items to the trade terminal, or stack them for a while longer, to see if the market returns.


How did humans come to be on Calypso?

In early days humans traverse their own star system, their home planet of Earth was ravaged for resources to the point of where recycling was a necessity, a number of the planets in the humans home star system were terraformed and colonized including many of the asteroids in the asteroid belt.

The furthest reach of human expansion was not far away from their home star. It was not one but a number of technologies that proved to be needed to cross the great void of space to the next nearest star. The Odysseus project was developed, seven huge unmanned probes built in orbit designed to travel vast distances, probe planets, and construct bases ready for human arrival. The probes main technological advancements, a mixture of shielding, AI and jump rail technology.

Once one of the probes uses its jump rail, which is a one use technology, it jumps vast distances to a location. On arrival the probe begin surveying and constructing drones in orbit, the drones go about mining and constructing bases for human arrival, then finally when the base was self sustaining the probe would constructing itself new jump rail to jump to a new location. Once the base reached a certain size it would be able to construct it own Odysseus probes. One of these spin off technologies from the project is used quite commonly today, the teleportation technology has erode many barriers in for the human race, not only distance, but also culture.

In the spirit of space travel humans followed the probes trail in massive colony ships adorned with their own jump rails headed for Calypso....


Land grab areas all owned by one society.

It may be a little know fact that land areas can be owned be by society leaders. At this current moment in time, all the land areas on Calypso are owned by one small society. So why is this such a big deal? I hear you ask. Well, all the land grab area create a revenue in hunting, mining and trading taxs, as well as settings for pvp and radar of the area. All this revenue goes the leader of a society the society that owns the area.

Now, what if I told you that all the land areas are owned by one society? One small group of 30 people in the society "WhySoSerious", currently do own all the land areas on Calypso.

This month I met up with KATILA, the well known estate owner on Entropia, as the details of the ownership of the areas was revealed to us, and the nature of the society owner. A KATILA reported to me, the owner of the area was willing to cut a deal for the land area, as number of well equipped, skilled members of "WhySoSerious" stand ready. I personally will not disclose any details of this deal, apart from a price was laid down to claim ownership from the society.

It would be interesting thing to see if this deal was agreed to or not, in the next month or so. It would be even more interesting to see some other competition to steak a claim on one of these land areas.


Pet fighting and ComPet Deeds.

Unless you have been living under some natural stones for last few months, you would have heard about about the pet fighting game coming to Android. Little is known about the pet system to come to Android but what is known, is the mixed view from the community about it. From a small poll done on the forum about who will try/play it at least once. 44.04% are totally not interested in the app what so ever, but the rest are interested in at least trying this Android application out!


Currently not much is known at all about the battle system, or how the game play will play out, but what is known is the fact the auction is littered with ComPet Deeds, and pet are once again running around following their masters.

One thing is for certain is people are uncertain, about deed payouts, when this application is coming, even how much to price a pet for sale, how to get a whip to tame, it is all so new and unsettled and it shows. Once the whip can simply be brought from the trade terminal, but today can only be crafted, It will be interesting if this will remain crafted or will it be available to all via the trade terminal.

Mindark's first Android app was not received very well, lacking some wanting features and many hope that this application will not be another bad side tool to Entropia Universe.